Andy Dallas takes on many roles, as one might assume of someone who owns a costume store. But truth be told, underneath the black button-up shirt — he's a magic man.

Dallas is the owner and operator of Dallas & Co. Costumes & Magic, located at 101 E. University Ave. in Champaign. The store gets heavy business right now as most students make Dallas & Co. their first stop for Halloween costumes. However, Dallas says that the real reason the store is in business is to support his love of magic.

"My main love is magic and Halloween is just what keeps the store open," he said. "I've been a magician since I was 11 years old and right now I'm the second vice president of the Society of American Magicians, which is the oldest magic organization in the world."

The Society of American Magicians was originally founded on May 10, 1902, in New York City, and Dallas says that it has over 7,000 members in over 50 countries.

"Right now, I'm the chairman of the cult investigation committee … that was actually inspired by Harry Houdini who was a big mover and shaker in this organization," Dallas said in his gray, wood paneled office. "I'm also the chair of the regional vice presidents."

Aside from his administrative work, Dallas is still actively involved in the "living, breathing" world of magic.

"I travel quite a bit," he said. "I do both magic and hypnosis programs and I also perform now a lot for magicians, so I have a magic act that's palatable to them."

Dallas lectures and performs at magic conventions around the world.

"I wanted to be that (a magician) since I was 5, it's just in you," he said excitedly. "That's something that I really wanted to be and then I went out and became it."

Dallas is originally from Memphis, Tenn., but has lived here since he was 8 years old and he considers himself a townie. While Dallas & Co. has been in business for some 29 years, Dallas had his share of odd jobs before finding what worked for him.

"I had 27 different jobs, so just anything," he said. "I actually owned an arcade over on Green Street called the Apple Duck Arcade, which was on campus."

Dallas said that he started selling high quality masks at the arcade and eventually transformed it into a small novelty shop called Novelty Village. The space was small — 6 feet by 8 feet — but the price was right, at $50 and some credit.

The original Novelty Village was located on Fifth and Green streets in Campustown, then it moved to 505 E. University Avenue. Next came Locust Street, and it eventually settled on First Street and University Avenue, where Dallas & Co. was born.

"At that moment the actual market shifted from child to adult and it was that shift that made this possible," Dallas said. "I have a lot of things happening that are going on in my life; there's the magic, there's the shop, there's also The Captain, Willie and Chester."

The Captain, Willie and Chester is Dallas' award winning comedy team — Dallas plays the Captain. They do television and radio commercials for the Illinois Farm Bureau, Decatur WB and AT&T.

The team received the National Farm Bureau Association award for best radio spot and they won the Aurora Marketing Platinum top prize award last year for their Farm Bureau television spots.

Dallas popped in a video of the award winning television ad, which pushed consumers to use ethanol fuel to help the environment and support the Midwest economy. He chuckled throughout the 30-second bit, giving the grin children do when they tote their pillowcases home and finally throw their sugary loot from trick-or-treating on the table for inspection.

"We've done some wild stuff," Dallas chuckled. "Right now we're playing in Chicago and St. Louis."

Still, comedy is a relatively new world for Dallas. He said he started doing the act as a fluke in 1984 with another magician. They played at a Miller Park fundraiser in Bloomington, Ill., and ended up doing it for seven years. The Captain and Willie eventually added Chester to finalize their trio in 1994.

"We don't use magic at all in the act," he said. "This is strictly comedy."

Still, Dallas makes his business an important part of his life as well. The Dallas & Co. facilities cover a lot more than what is seen from the outside.

Outside of Dallas' office on the second floor, several 5-foot hand-painted color banners hanging on the walls and leaning against cabinets display some of Dallas' most provocative stunts.

Artist Glen Davies has created all of Dallas' stunt banners, including the triple death trap, the airtight vault escape and the underwater coffin escape — which was televised from Spain on European television. Dallas has done straitjacket and chain escapes hanging off of helicopters and skyscrapers. He has hung off of cranes — once above the University's Assembly Hall — and he shows no sign of stopping his magic.

"I'm doing an escape now called the spirit chamber," he said. "It's based off an old act from the early 1800s."

In the act a tent is held up by four spectators, and Dallas is seated in a chair with legs, arms and neck bound with rope. The canvas is raised and it shakes as things fly out and noises sound. When they drop the tent, he's still tied to the chair and hasn't moved. It goes on a few times and he is finally revealed tied up wearing only his underwear in the chair for the final raising.

"Very few people do this in the world," he said. "There's probably five in the world that do this and I've got a way of doing it that no one else does."

He says that he is always working on new material and he practices every day in his home studio.

"I've been working on an act now for 25 years and I'm about to let it loose," he said describing the "very consuming" new act. Dallas practices every day in his home facility which is a room with a wall-length mirror.

As Dallas walked through the shop, he stopped to point out all of the things that make Dallas & Co. so special. He paused at the piñata section where he said he took great pride because the toys could be bought individually.

"A mom can come in here and buy a toy for her kid for a nickel; where can you do that anywhere else?" he said. "Nowhere."

Dallas stopped in front of a huge 30-foot tall gorilla, which he bought from Hollywood.

"It was too cool."

In the main room, Predator and Pumpkin Head statues from the actual movie sets, a real human skeleton in a casket behind glass and an early 1900s funhouse clown all adorned the shop.

Past the rental department were wooden steps leading down to the shipping and receiving warehouse, which led even further down.

"Watch your head," he said, ducking under the low-rising ceiling of the basement storage space. "I'll get you lost by the end of it."

Walking in circles past seemingly endless supplies of color-coded decorations, masks and costumes, he never stopped moving or calling off each section. "This is Valentine's Day. This is St. Patty's Day. This is Christmas. This is Fourth of July ... Isn't it amazing?"

Back upstairs, Dallas walked to the magic room, which is barred off by chains.

"This is my area; we keep it off in the back so you don't know where it is," he said. "We don't care who comes back here, we just want to have somebody back here then, because there's a lot of stuff that's pretty valuable."

Dallas later met up with his friend and Be Something Studios originator, legendary mask-maker Bob Zagone.

"Andy's a very true buyer, but you know what, instead of making that extra buck he passes it along to his consumers," Zagone said as Dallas led us to the Dallas & Co. "haunted room."

"As soon as the lights go off come on through," Dallas said slipping around the back.

The lights went black and an organ blasted old church hymns. "You can go first," Zagone said.

The room was full of bloody corpses, vomiting zombies, shaking skeletons, roaring beasts and air cannons blasting at our feet. But the real scare came at the end when Dallas jumped out from behind a corner with a mask on and rang a buzzer as he grabbed me and laughed hysterically.

"(Dallas) can be rather intimidating, but in a nice way," said sales associate, Jessi Schield. "It's like an incentive to work harder."

Dallas said that this year they have put over 12,000 people through the haunted room.

Assistant manager Mike Panico said that he likes working under Dallas and said he is a big joker around work.

"He has a joke for me almost every day," he said. "He's always getting in on how (the employees) rip each other here ... so it's fun."

This is Panico's fifth Halloween — which is how length of employment is measured at Dallas & Co. — and he enjoys work so much because "it's sort of a local independent business. If I have problems I can go directly to the owner, without any of the bureaucracy."

Dallas reiterated that his favorite part of running the business is the magic shop.

"We're a destination store," Dallas said. "You come here because you want something specific; we're not a shopping store, so that requires a totally different mindset."

Although he has a store filled with costumes, Dallas said he never dresses up for Halloween.

"We're so busy here getting everybody else dressed up, by the time we're done we're so tired we just go out and have dinner and say it's over," he said.

His mother-in-law usually takes care of the trick-or-treaters at his home.

"We usually give out more than one kind and it's usually the good stuff, like a full bag of M&M's or a Snickers bar … and we always throw in a toy."

Last year they gave out light sticks.

Even after tonight when business slows down again, Dallas will still have his magic.

"I'm living out my dreams and that's the nice part," he said with a grin. "I don't feel bad about getting up and coming to work."